The present invention relates to systems and methods for determining the context of a mobile device, and more particularly is related to determining the context of a mobile device in an energy efficient manner.
Various attempts at developing applications to determine the context of a mobile device have been previously made. Generally, the context of the mobile device can include whether the mobile device is stationary or in motion and if the mobile device is in motion if the mobile device is located inside a vehicle.
Determining if a mobile device is inside of a vehicle is of particular value for a wide array of mobile applications. Some applications that would benefit from accurate context awareness include the ability to change the state of phone to prevent unfavorable user behavior like texting while driving. Another application may be configured to determine vehicle congestion and communicate that information to a traffic server. Yet another sample application would change the state of the phone into “driver mode” that would make certain functions more easily accessible while others could be less easily accessible.
To date, most methods for determining that a mobile device is in a vehicle have been through the use of location technologies such as GPS, A-GPS, Wifi Position System (WPS), and cellular phone tower triangulation. Using location based technologies to determine mobile device context has numerous drawbacks. For example, determining the speed and location of the device in this manner has bandwidth, power, and privacy implications. In addition, certain vehicle situations such as a vehicle inside a city become substantially more difficult to identify since the vehicle does not travel very far within a fixed amount of time.
Furthermore, power is a major resource constraint in mobile devices. In situations where the mobile device is not able to be easily charged, the device must rely on a battery, which is a limited power source. Continuously determining a mobile device's location and speed using a power intensive technology, such as GPS, greatly reduces the battery life of the mobile device. In addition, calculating speed and transmitting location data wastes energy and bandwidth.